The St. Johns herald., 1887-03-17
THE SYMPATHETIC SNAIL TR1CK.
A Chapter of Amusement for Lovers, Rel
 atiSes and Friends.

atiVes and Friends.
 To give person a lock of your hair, or. as in China. pairing of your finger nail, is to show your perfect trust and confidence in him tor her by putting yourself implicitly and entirely in his tor her power and safe keeping.
 Whatever has once belonged to any, body, and far more therefore whatever has once formed an actual physical part of his person. puts its present possessor so fully en rapport with the original owner that he can to great extent con- trol that owners destinies.
 In all magical ceremonies, whatever their purport-whether to avenge ones self upon ones enemy, or to gain the favor of the unkind and Inexpensive object of ones affections, or tO bring back the heart of ones now faithlcss lover it Is almost necessary to throw into the mystic caldr0n, or to burn with the fated image, lock Of the persons hair, or Q rag of his clothing, CT at the very least something CT ether that has once be- l9neel .o liln.
 Here is a little illustrative modern superstition which may help to make clearer the frame of mind that renders such strange forms of belief even now possible.
 It Is known as the sympathetic snail trick. To communicate with your lover at distance, take two snails, and feed them on lettuce in box together for a week or ten days before his departure for parts unknown. Then let your lover take one of the snails with him, while you keep the other in box at home.
 Arrange beforehand fixed day and hour for communicating with one an- other, and at that hour take your own snail out of its box and lay it on | slip of paper on which you have written out q copy of the alphabet. Qt shows the an- tiquity of the superstition that the letters must be capitals, in Roman form, not in script hand.)
 Induce the snail to travel along the line up to the letter you wish to halt at (the inducement usually assuming prac- tical shape in the point of a pin), and then stop him.
 If the experiment has been properly performed, your lovers snail (put out similarly Gt the same moment, like a molluscan trayeSty of the CorSican Brothcrs1 will travel along the core spending slip and stop accurately at the same letter.
 You can thus spell out as many words as you choose in the exact, easy and conven- lent fashion which the departed human spirit has independently invented for cor responding through the medium of 5 o'clock tea table with its surviving rela- tives.
 If the communication doesn't como ofT. that is because your absent lover, faith less man, has forgotten or neglected the appointed hour, or has ceased to love you, or has otherwise in some way CT manner misconducted himself.
 Perhaps. also, in the case of places far distant from one another. such as Eng land and Australia, sufficient care may not always be taken by the unscientific swain to insure the correction of the local hour to Greenwich mean time; and the sympathetic snail may thus be made to walk about needlessly in his box al dead of night while his companion at the other side of the world is rejoicing in the full enjoyment of the antipodal noOntide.--
 Longman's Magazine.